


Half a Galaxy

by Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amilyn Holdo - Freeform, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Femslash, Leia organa - Freeform, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/pseuds/Miri%20Cleo
Summary: Half a galaxy could not keep her away.





	Half a Galaxy

Running, hiding, and running again. That had been her life, all of their lives, for far too long. Leia massaged her temple, her eyes closed for an all too brief moment of respite. Her ring felt heavy as she lowered her hand. Her eyelids were reluctant to rise. She forced them open, one and then another, just as she did every morning. Lieutenant Connix waited, hands behind her back but her eyes wide. She stood a little too straight, spoke a little too deferentially. She was still trying to make up for her involvement in what they had all jokingly come to refer to as "Poe's Rebellion." It didn't matter now. They were still so, painfully few. 

"A shuttle, you say?"

"Yes, General. She was nearly out of fuel, adrift, and she knew obsolete codes, but…"

Leia looked up, her mouth a thin line. She did not hide the weariness in her eyes. "Obsolete codes are obsolete for a reason."

"Yes, ma'am. Many of the scouts, the crew are new…"

She waved her hand for silence. "Bring the intruder here. Anyone who can get this close is obviously worth my time."

"Right away, General."

Leia turned back to the star charts she had been studying. What was left to them in all of the galaxy were crumbling strongholds and worthless bases. Each new recruit brought one small sliver of hope, but the universe was so vast, so empty. And the First Order seemed to be there at every turn. And with every disappointment, she felt the pain of loss. Leia was not immune to the call of the Dark Side. She felt it as Luke had. She rejected it, making her choice just as Ben, as much as it wrenched her soul, had made his. But she continued, one foot before the other, rebuilding her Resistance once again. 

Connix returned with the prisoner, flanked by two other guards that Leia could not name just yet. And Connix's eyes were wide, searching. She looked as if she were about to speak, but Leia held up her hand. 

"That will be all. Thank you."

"General," Connix began, stepping forward, "I didn't…" But her words withered under Leia's stare, and she nodded. As she turned, the guards hesitated, but they followed moments later. Leia did not know what Connix imparted to them silently. She remained still, her hands clenched with an attempt at discipline. When the door closed and they were alone, she stayed that way, breathing slowly. 

"Leia." That voice. Always so serene but still almost laughing. And a half smile. "I've crossed half the galaxy to find you."

"Only half?" Leia swallowed. She felt tears prick the corner of her eyes, but she held them at bay. 

A beat, a mere moment, and the prisoner, her curls faded and her clothing frayed, strode close and took Leia's face in her hands. She kissed her, softly at first. It wasn't tentative, but her lips searched. And the kiss grew deeper with a longing and need that half the galaxy could never contain. 

*****

The heat woke her, and she felt her body screaming for relief. She was not supposed to be alive. She was not supposed to be writhing in pain, screaming into what was most certainly not a void. But her body, though it gulped for breath and fought to remain conscious, was whole. Tears streamed from her eyes, and from them, she drew strength. Around her, the world burned, fell apart, but she pulled herself out of the wreckage, her mind alive with the poetry of her youth.   
Her gown tangled in her legs, so she ripped it and used it to staunch the flow of blood from her own wounds. She was alive. She was alive, and it didn't matter how or why, but she crawled from a tangle of smoldering metal, her hair singed. Though she could hear cries and smell burning flesh, she kept moving. With each breath, she took in air that should not have been there. She looked over her shoulder to see a field of stars, but the paper thin magnetic shielding held, and every pained step she took, tried not to wonder just how long it would be there. 

The escape pod closed around her like the blackness at the corner of her eyes, and she ejected without worrying about where it sent her. If her luck ran out, it ran out and had extended past the point of reasonable expectation. She watched the small screen. So many losses--but there was still hope. 

*****

Crait was scorched salt and wreckage. She stood alone in the unforgiving wind, watching, waiting. But, save for the Vulptices, she was alone with the bones of speeders in the bloody earth. She did not count the days as she worked on a ship. She stripped the rust and pulled away the crumbling electronics. At midday, the salt shone so brightly, she could not travel. Scavenging the battlefield for parts was difficult even in the onset of evening. She slid with every other step. Her hands dried and cuticles bled from catching herself in the salt dust. At night, the wind sang to her during her restless sleep. 

The Vulptices watched her singe her eyebrows as she wired a flight console back together. She followed them from the burrows to hidden sources of water far enough down in the caves that the salt had not touched it. In the darkness, she couldn't see her own reflection as she dipped her hands in and washed her face, but she spoke to it anyway, reminding herself that she was real. 

The day she lifted off of the surface, the salt scattered, revealing red earth. She turned away and kept her eyes towards the stars. There was hardly a trail for her to follow. It was whispers, half revealed. Her ship lasted longer than she expected, but one could only repair a heap of junk so many times. She traded it for close to nothing, leaving her stranded on a desert planet whose name she didn't even know. 

Her hair had gotten long, and when she saw her reflection again, bright eyes greeted her from a weathered face. Battle scars could be subtle, and while the galaxy had aged her, there were worse fates. She tended bar and kept her eyes and ears open. The Resistance, it seemed, shrank to mere legend. It wouldn't be the first time. And those who knew better were tight-lipped, especially as she had so very little to trade. At first, at least. 

Information and her meager wages got her offworld. And that was her story on the next outpost and the freighter after that and onward. She followed the rumors and traded what she had. She was no longer young, and she had long ago left the poetry and peace of her home. But her resolve grew with each whisper, each rumor that the Resistance lived. Those embers, she knew, would become a flame. When she stole an old, Imperial shuttle, there was little of that anonymity and monotony that she could fall back on. 

*****

When she limped into the path of a Resistance cruiser, her codes were out of date, and she had not attempted to discover new ones. Her journey had come full circle, and trusted her fate to it. 

For days, she sat in a cell. Each change of the guards brought another face she did not recognize. But even then, she was calm, content. And now, she pulled away just enough that her forehead still touched Leia's. And she smiled--small at first though it grew to the unfettered, toothy grin of her youth.

"Amilyn Holdo." Leia touched her cheeks, and finally, she pulled her close. "You've come back to me."

And Amilyn closed her eyes. Her spirit calmed even though her heart beat wildly in her chest. Finally, she was home.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read Leia: A Princess of Alderaan, and as a Star Wars fan I feel okay with that given that I haven't gotten into any of the other extended canon (though, as a YA librarian, I do feel a little derelict in my duty). Basically, I'm pretty obsessed with Laura Dern as a badass Space Bisexual, and I'm just really not okay with her being dead. Sooooo, twtd was like "uh, make her not dead." And it was Christmas Eve...and I had been drinking some wine. So, yeah...here it is, folks. 
> 
> Thanks to twtd for inciting fic and doing the useful work of betaing as well.


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